Web design program editions confusion

[Howard]

Visual Web Developer 2005

Expression Web Designer
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007



Could someone explain the difference between these products? I think web
developer is more programmer oriented but sharepoint designer and expression
seem to both be a WYSIWYG editor.
Could someone make a features comparison chart?

Howard

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

Visual Web developer is part of the Visual Studio family and, like the other
Visual Studio Express products (like Visual Studio C# Express) offers a
limited amount of functionality, but enough to make life a lot easier. It's
focus is on writing ASP.Net code and web site design.

Expression Web Designer is a WYSIWYG editor focused on general web
development and is a much better editor than Visual Web Developer and a
direct competitor against the likes of DreamWeaver. Microsoft Office
SharePoint designer will be similar to Expression Web Designer, but focus
heavily on integration with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. These two
products will be more alike in this first release probably since they are
outgrowths of MS FrontPage and are only beginning their divergence.

No chart exists yet and you probably won't see one until the Expression Web
Designer and SharePoint Desinger are much further along as their feature set
may end up changing before release (just like any other MS software).

Hope this helps,
Mark Fitzpatrick
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage

 

[clintonG]

SharePoint Designer is FrontPage with a new name.

<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://www.metromilwaukee.com/clintongallagher/

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

I like to think of Expression as what FP should have been instead of FP
2003. FP 2003 went too far in the wrong direction focusing on SharePoint.
SharePoint is nice and all, but was a bad focus for the product. EWD seems
more what FP should have been.

Mark Fitzpatrick
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Mark,

Can the Expression thing still open, edit and publish sites through the
Frontpage server extensions?

 

[clintonG]

Oddly enough as I see it -- FrontPage as lame as it has been -- happens to
support the greatest level of interoperability with another application that
just happens to be SharePoint. regardless I think it was a wise move to
rebrand and focus on interoperability.

For me, to what extent FrontPage code has been reused for Expression Web
Designer (EWD) is a ho-hum issue. The big picture here is right there in the
name of the product itself. Note the product is a "designer" and not a
"developer." AFIC these new products are another crop of lame crippleware
extending the FrontPage legacy. As far as I can tell they are not
interoperable and they are not extensible.

While EWD is only at CTP 1 there is absolutely no sign of an extensible
framework such as support for the development of extensions equivalent to
the manner in which they are developed and supported by DreamWeaver. Now
extensibility would pep things up a whole hell of a lot.

Maybe I need to go to an optometrist though because I just don't see it.

<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://www.metromilwaukee.com/clintongallagher/